


Red Dragon

by AnguaMarten



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gang World, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:37:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguaMarten/pseuds/AnguaMarten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>An AU I've been bouncing around.<br/>I'd like to continue this, but I probably won't unless people are actually reading. So please let me know if you want to see more!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Red Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> An AU I've been bouncing around.  
> I'd like to continue this, but I probably won't unless people are actually reading. So please let me know if you want to see more!

The skinhead was lying on top of a pile of garbage bags, half-obscured by bits of cardboard. He was completely bald, but apparently made up for it in the form of tattoos, which curled around almost every inch of his skin. The most prominent, though, were the simple blue arrows that adorned his arms and forehead. 

Katara wasn’t sure if he was dead or knocked out or just sleeping, but he probably wouldn’t last long lying in a dumpster in the bad part of town. Well, the worse part of town. Really, it was all relative. The south side wasn’t where most of the fighting took place, at least, but it was nearly empty. Everyone who could afford to had moved out months ago, leaving a kind of ghost town that still seemed to accumulate a suspicious amount of trash.

She picked her way over the bags until she was standing over the skinhead. Well, he didn’t look hurt—there was no blood and no visible wounds, which was probably a good thing. Unless it meant he had brain damage. Although he looked strangely… peaceful, actually. Which was weird. No one should look that serene in a dumpster. She quickly checked his pulse and breathing—faint, but there.

Still, his skin was gray and ashy and he was very thin, almost dangerously so. He was young, too. Younger than her, though probably not by much.   
And his tattoos. Those arrows didn’t look like a style choice—they had to mean something. But were there any gangs with arrows as their symbol? Well, one. If she was right, though, that would mean a hell of a lot more questions.

Ah, well. Right now, her main priority was saving his life. She lugged the kid over her shoulder and started the trek back to her place. 

***

Was it really him?

It couldn’t be. Not after all this time. She probably wouldn’t even recognize him now. It had been, what, three years? Four? Ten? And of course he would look completely different now.

She’d thought he’d gotten out of the city. She’d hoped he had. Gotten out, started a new life, one far away from his father and sister. Healed.

He was wearing a dirty gray hoodie, but this was a dirty gray hoodie kind of bar. In the west end of town, the absolute worst place for him. The west end was fire territory. Not just territory, headquarters. The Red Dragon Syndicate operated out of the abandoned industrial section of town, with plenty of warehouses and old factories for producing their exports. The main harbor was on the west side, too. The rest of the world might have abandoned the Quad, but they still bought its wares. The illicit ones, at least. 

Mai tapped her drink thoughtfully. She desperately wanted to go to him, check if she was right, see if he was okay. But Azula would find out about it. Nobody in the bar would dare bother her, but she’d be shocked if at least a couple weren’t spying for the princess. 

“Excuse me, miss. It’s just that a few of my friends and I were wondering—why would a lady like yourself be in this kind of dump?”

Unbelievable. Someone was actually trying to flirt with her.

The speaker was a sloppy young man who probably thought himself rakishly handsome, if the stupid little hat he was wearing was any indication. Mai sighed.

The idiot snapped his fingers and conjured a flame like some kind of street magician. Absolutely no class. He beckoned towards the cigarette between her sharp, polished nails. 

“Need a light?”

Mai took it, and then ground the cigarette into the bartop a millimeter from his finger. He hastily withdrew his hand. 

“I’m going to be nice and assume that you’re new. I’m going to be even nicer and take you under my wing a little. If you ever see me sitting her, don’t approach. Actually, don’t approach me anywhere. Especially not if I look like I’ve got something on my mind.” She leaned a little closer. “The sooner you learn to recognize a high-level Red Dragon operative, kid, the longer you’ll last around here.”

“A Dragon? You?” 

What was it about men? They saw a beautiful woman with flawless posture in a skintight cheongsam, drinking and smoking, being left auspiciously alone in the middle of a famously rough bar and gang-controlled gambling ring. And they thought they’d just gotten lucky. 

Mai sighed, and walked past the gaping idiot. Fuck it, Azula would find out eventually. She might as well get to him first.

He was standing in the corner, mostly hidden by smoke and shadow. The right side of his face was obscured, so she couldn’t be sure… but that was him, wasn’t it? The yellow eyes, the pointed chin, the lean build. It had to be.

“Got a light?”

She leaned against the wall next to him, and brushed the cigarette between her lips through the flame that appeared in his hand. Silently she cursed herself for not being a little more creative. He didn’t turn his face.

Mai took a deep drag and glanced at him from beneath her heavy black mascara. The bar was loud and smoky and dirty, full of clinking glasses and rolling dice and shouting. She could risk it.

“Zuko.”

That got his attention. He turned, and Mai knew immediately her gamble had been right. 

Zuko didn’t look all that different from the boy she used to know, not really. He still didn’t know how to keep his face under control. There was shock, confusion, and something like joy written all across it. And innocence—that surprised her. It was in conflict with the raw red scar that narrowed his eye and engulfed the right side of his face.

“Mai!” He actually sounded happy to see her. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not the one who just came back from the dead.”

“I never pretended to be dead.”

“Well, something like it.”

She paused.   
“Meet me on the warehouse roof, in ten minutes. I’ll leave first. Try not to get noticed.” She hoped he still remembered how to get there. It had been important to them, after all. She hadn’t forgotten in all these years. Why would he? 

Zuko nodded. Without looking back, Mai left. It probably wasn’t smart, doing this, but dammit, Azula owed her by now. She deserved at least this much.  
She felt his eyes on her as she let herself melt through the crowd and into the night.


End file.
